Entertainment

Powerful Dove experiment shows how women can choose to feel beautiful

A powerful new video from Dove reminds us that women have the power to choose to feel beautiful.

The company put up signs that said "beautiful" and "average" above the entryways of shopping centers in five cities, San Francisco, Shanghai, Delhi, London and Sao Paulo, and watched as women contemplated about which door to enter.

What happens in the clip below reflects data that shows how the majority of women view their appearance.

According to a study connected by Dove, most women (96%) said they wouldn't choose the word beautiful to describe themselves — although about 80% said there is something beautiful about them.

The video is a part of Dove's #ChooseBeautiful campaign that encourages women to reconsider the choice they make about their beauty and how that makes them feel.

"Women make thousands of choices each day — related to their careers, their families, and, let’s not forget, themselves," the company said in a statement. "Feeling beautiful is one of those choices that women should feel empowered to make for themselves, every day."

The effort follows its #SpeakBeautiful campaign that aimed to boost self esteem on Twitter and reverse the damage of negative tweets, thanks to an ad that aired during the 2015 Academy Awards pre-show in February.

Its most successful video to date is Sketches, which went viral in 2013 and became the most shared ad of all time. The experiment taught an eye-opening lesson about how we view ourselves compared to how others see us.

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